Fewer deaths, more hospitalisations in metros amid the spike in cases

Large cities are seeing an increase in occupancy, though most beds still remain vacant

The rising number of Covid-19 cases hasn't so far been accompanied by an increase in the number of daily deaths attributed to the pandemic.

There were 23 deaths around the middle of last month on a seven-day moving average basis, according to numbers from independent tracker covid19bharat.org. This coincides with a downward trend in cases at the time, with 2,637 daily cases countrywide on a seven-day moving average basis. The number of daily cases has since risen to over 11,000 this week. The daily death numbers came in at 16 as of Monday.

Hospitalisation was checked for three major metros with available data. Not all of them release the numbers on a uniform basis. Data was taken with a cut-off of Sunday, June 19, for comparison. There is a surge in the number of hospital beds occupied in Chennai, Delhi and Mumbai.

Chennai had seven hospital cases as of May 15. This had risen to 89 on June 19. Delhi’s was up from 125 to 220 while Mumbai’s hospitalisations rose from 25 to 652 in the same period. This has not meant that hospitals are crowded yet.

Only 1.1 per cent of Chennai’s hospital beds are currently occupied. The figure is 2.3 per cent in Delhi and 2.6 per cent in Mumbai.

The number of deaths in each of the major metros has not risen significantly. Mumbai had one death on May 15 and the same number on June 19. Chennai had no deaths on either date. Delhi’s deaths rose from one to six.

Interestingly, there has not been an increase in hospital bed capacity during this period across the three metros. All three recorded a small decline in the number of beds they had during this period.

Gautam Bhansali of the Bombay Hospital, who is also the coordinator between the city’s private hospitals and the municipal corporation says that this is not a 'wave' but we can say it's a 'surge' in cases. There is no major demand for hospitalisation and beds are lying vacant in both public sector and private sector hospitals. "Therefore, there is no immediate need to ramp up the infrastructure now. Also, in hospitalised patients, the demand for medical oxygen is limited," he added.

Doctors feel that people are more confident on how to deal with the disease now. "Patients know that there are enough hospital beds, and that they would get one when they need. So the unnecessary rush is not there," Bhansali says. Fewer than 100 patients in Mumbai are on oxygen supported beds.

Most patients are recovering within 3-5 days, doctors say.

Ajay Agarwal, director and head of the department of internal medicine, Fortis Hospital, Noida said most patients with symptoms of cold and flu are testing positive on reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) tests.

"As Covid-19 cases are on the rise, we are seeing a lot of patients presenting with symptoms of cold, cough, fever, body ache …Patients think that they have common flu…resulting in late isolation of patients and as such more spread. However, fortunately hospitalization requirements are almost not there and people are getting well," he says.

 A hospital administrator in Delhi pointed out that while the trends may be encouraging so far, home testing can lead to delays in diagnosis and eventual complications. "In January, Delhi was testing much higher, around 70,000 tests per day, and it crossed the 1 lakh mark on several occasions. But, now we are testing less than 20,000 a day, because apart from government testing, private testing is low. People are opting for home test kits," he added.

While there is no consolidated data on private home testing of Covid-19, sales of rapid antigen test kits by India's largest manufacturer has gone up by 40 percent or so in the last one month. Pune based Mylab is making 1.5million test kits a day. The demand is coming from western and southern markets, the company informed.

Many test results are not captured in the national testing database.